


Creatures of Habit

by 0positiv



Category: Highlander - All Media Types, James Asher Vampire Series - Barbara Hambly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:44:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0positiv/pseuds/0positiv
Summary: Methos studying medicine and fellow doctors at Oxford.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icarus_chained](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/gifts).



They are both, in their own ways, creatures of habit, Methos thinks. But whereas his habits are millennia old, some of them, hers can't be older than a few years, given her youth.

He sees her often, at the dissecting rooms, focused on her work with a level of concentration he'd never allow himself because it isolates her completely in her world of nerves, veins and organs. To draw her attention one has to veritably shout at her. He would never risk not sensing an approaching immortal just because he was too caught up in his work. She, of course, didn't have such worries.

He has watched her often enough to be intimately familiar with the way she preforms a dissection. He knows that she'll always rinse the knives and other instruments in the water collected in the sink to wash off most of the blood before she puts them aside for later use so the blood doesn't dry on them.

She has a specific order in which she examines the organs, specific ways to dissect them too, and she hardly ever deviates from that pattern.

He's quietly amused at her China doll perfection in fashionable dresses and expert understated make-up which contrasts so crassly with the blood stains on her arms and the morbid surroundings. He does wonder about the silver chains on both her wrists that get revealed every time she takes off her gloves and rolls up her sleeves. They aren't fashionable or ornamented, they are much too plain for someone with her taste in clothes. She never takes them off either, not even to perform a dissection. Surely there must be a story behind that, more than just habit. More than sentiment too, surely.

And of course he's very aware of the fact that he's not the only one watching her, though he might be spending an indecent amount of time on studying her. She's the only speck of pastel colours in this world of black and white suits among white and red corpses, her hair a bright flame in the evening sunlight.

Not all the glances thrown her way are as appreciative as his own or even all that benevolent. There will always be those who think women have no place in academia, least of all in the medical field, he fears.

Oh how soon humanity forgot the times when women were the healers of their tribes, wisdom passed down from mother to daughter. Midwives and witches and wise women who were respected and revered as the treasures they were.

They call her a spoiled rich girl who gets her way only because daddy had friends in high placed yet from what Methos has heard her father had not approved of her choice of subject at all.

She is clearly more intelligent than most of his male peers, he could tell that much already even though he had only talked to her about five times. They weren't exactly in the same social circles, he was still a student after all and she had graduated a few years ago, he was an impoverished student and she was a rich heiress.

He chances upon her in the park again on his way home, which was mostly how they had come to talk before since neither of them was much for having small talk over dead bodies. She clearly enjoys feeding the sparrows and pigeons and crows that flocked around anyone who might drop a few crumbs.

"Mr. Adams, so nice to see you again. Did you finish writing that paper yet? "

He wants to tell her to call him Ben but that would be highly inappropriate, with her being a married woman, a don's wife no less, and him just a student.

"Mrs. Asher, good evening. I fear the muses have fled me so no, alas, the paper remains unfinished on my desk, mocking me."

She laughs at his dramatic tone of voice and asks him if he won't sit with her for a bit. When he does she hands him a piece of the roll she's feeding the birds.

"Jamie, Prof. Asher, is late and I wouldn't mind some company. I think he had some kind of meeting, at least I seem to recall him mumbling over breakfast about the damned politics of college life getting in the way of academia, or something to that effect. "

As he throws the feathered army at their feet some crumbs Methos is sure that just as he wears the mask of whichever identity he currently inhabits Lydia Asher puts on a mask of slightly ineffectual upper class lady because it's what people expect from her.

They want her to be obsessed with dresses and balls, not glands and secretions. She hides her brilliant mind behind idle chit chat about society like she hides her glasses as soon as she leaves the dissecting room. She once told him she would prefer not to wear them there at all but when she tried she nearly cut her finger off so she decided she'd rather be ugly than lose any appendages.

He wishes he could tell her that she's beautiful, glasses or no glasses, but it would be highly inappropriate. If she weren't married yet he'd try and win her hand himself. It has been too long since he had a wife, her name had been Annabella and she had been brilliant if uneducated.

Even if Lydia were married yet unhappily so he'd woo her but it just took a few seconds of seeing her and Prof. Asher together, when he finally arrived with apologies for making her wait, to know that she loved him with all her heart and he worshipped the ground she walked on.

Methos did try his best not to envy them. They only had this one life, after all, and they were lucky to be spending it with someone they loved.

And they were well matched, he thought, for Prof. Asher clearly was as intelligent as his wife. When they shook hands James gave Methos the same stealthy once over Methos himself usually employed to assess if someone could be a threat. It seemed to be the same kind of hard to break unconscious habit for both of them even in situations that couldn't be less threatening if they tried.

Somehow Methos got the feeling that those sharp brown eyes saw more than they should, that James knew, just from that one glance, about the few well concealed weapons Methos carried. Just as Methos was sure that Asher was not unarmed himself. Interesting.

There surely was some kind of secret there to be uncovered. And Methos was sure he caught a glimpse of the same silver chains on the husband's wrists that he'd seen on Lydia's. Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe he should make a habit of watching Prof. Asher as well?

When the days get shorter and winter comes around Methos gets the nagging feeling that he isn't the only one watching Lydia. Sometimes he thinks he sees a dark figure in the fog out of the corner of his eyes but when he turned his head to check there was never anyone there. It might be just his imagination but since it happened more than once he finds it best to err on the side of caution.

 

 


End file.
